With 6.1 million Florida votes cast, Democrats have 0.5% turnout edge

More than 6.1 million Floridians have already voted in the 2016 election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, with Democrats narrowly edging Republicans in turnout, according to the latest Division of Elections statistics.

As of this morning, 2,435,493 Democrats have voted in Florida — 39.59 percent of all ballots cast. There have been 2,402,867 ballots cast by Republicans — 39.06 percent of the total.

That’s a difference of 32,626 ballots or 0.53 percent of votes cast so far.

Another 1,313,739 ballots, or 21.35 percent, have been cast by voters who have no party affiliation or belong to minor parties.

With in-person early voting ending today, it appears Democrats will not enter Tuesday with as big an advantage as in 2012, when the party outpaced Republicans by more than 150,000 ballots before election day. After Republican turnout topped Democrats on election day itself, President Barack Obama ended up winning Florida by 74,309 votes or 0.9 percent.

More than 2.5 million Floridians have voted by mail and more than 3.6 million have voted at in-person early voting sites, which opened Oct. 24 and close at the end of the day today, with Democrats planning a “Souls to the Polls” blitz to turn out minority voters.